The distress context of social calls evokes a fear response in the bat Pipistrellus abramus.

ABSTRACT: Bats primarily use sound information, including echolocation, for social communication. Bats under stressful conditions, for example when confronted by a predator, will emit aggressive social calls. The presentation of aggressive social calls, including distress calls (DCs), is known to increase heart rate (fH), but how this change in fH is related to the bat's sound perception and how this evokes behaviors such as the fear response is unknown. Herein, we show that the perception of a distress context induces freezing behavior as a fear response in bats. We found that bats responded by freezing and displayed increased fH when they were presented with a conspecific donor bat in a distress situation evoked by gentle poking with a cotton swab. In addition, when we presented two types of audit

SUBMITTER: Yoshino-Hashizawa K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10714146 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature